A number of Qatari journalists demonstrated that they support Hamas, despite Qatar’s role in the negotiations.
By Rachel Avraham
According to a recent report by MEMRI, “Although Qatar is perceived by international elements and by the Israeli government as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas, the emirate’s government press continues to express unreserved support for Hamas’s terrorist activities and even calls on it to intensify them. Following the August 20, 2025 operation perpetrated by Hamas terrorists in Khan Younis, which included a raid on an Israeli army position and an attempt to abduct Israeli soldiers, journalists in Qatar’s government media published articles and posts that celebrated the attack and urged Hamas to make further attempts to capture Israeli soldiers.”
MEMRI continued, “Journalist Ihsan Al-Faqih, a columnist for the Qatari government daily Al-Sharq, lauded the operation and described it as proof that Hamas is still capable of taking the initiative, acting and loosening Israel’s military grip on the Gaza Strip. This operation, she said, upended Israel’s strategic plans, exposed its security and intelligence weaknesses, and proved that its army’s control of the Gaza Strip is an “illusion” and that its forces will face “hell” if they realize their plan to invade Gaza City. She also assessed that Hamas will ultimately manage to seize more Israeli soldiers and thereby improve its position in the negotiations with Israel.”
She claimed that the attempt to abduct more Israeli soldiers “shocked Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his friends on the far right, confounded them, and upended the strategic military considerations of the Israeli leadership.” This action, she wrote, “was the most prominent and forceful operation by the resistance since October 7, [2023]. Israel was betting on the assumption that Hamas is exhausted and that the Gaza Strip would be safer for its soldiers, she said, but “this blow demonstrates the readiness of the factions on the ground… the existence of a united leadership infrastructure capable of taking decisions under stress… and the ability of the factions to use tunnels in this complicated and densely-populated area.” Moreover, “the operation demonstrated the security and intelligence disintegration of the Israeli army,” and belied its claim that it has taken control of the area. It also proved that the notions of toppling Hamas and of an Israeli victory are nothing but “an illusion that Netanyahu is peddling to his people.”
In a post on his X account, Jaber Al-Harmi, editor of the government daily Al-Sharq, heaped praise on the operation in Khan Younis and the fighters of the Hamas military wing, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, writing: “Even if the Al-Qassam heroes failed to abduct Zionist soldiers this time around, the second, third or fourth attempts, Allah willing, will manage to add new rats to the number [of hostages] held by the heroes of the brigades…”
He continued: “In today’s attempt, during a high-quality raid on a new [Israeli] military position in Rafah [sic; the operation took place in Khan Younis], the Al-Qassam heroes managed to send several Zionist soldiers to hell, and good riddance. [They sent] several others to suffer torment in this world by [causing them] permanent disfigurement and disabilities, or [by sending them] to lunatic asylums. I strengthen the hands of the heroes, and may the hands of the impure criminals, riff raff from all over the world, become paralyzed.”
Former Al-Jazeera director Yasser Abu Hilala, who is close to the Qatari Emir’s advisor Azmi Bishara, likewise extolled the operation and the Hamas operatives who carried it out, writing: “This is an operation that will be studied in military academies. This is an operation that will be studied in departments of philosophy, psychology and history. These are the soldiers of Allah, who, after two years of total destruction, [still] emerge from the tunnels to abduct the soldiers of the enemy!…”
